Life and politics from the Sunshine State's best city

Texas

Airbnb, the nation’s largest vacation rental home marketing business, said Thursday it has 230 host homes mostly in northern Florida offering free stays to Hurricane Irma evacuees and relief workers and now is activating its disaster relief program through more of Florida.

Florida volunteers have reached out to Texas in its time of need. The state’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, including hundreds of volunteers from the Sunshine State, are continuing disaster response efforts in Texas, rescuing hundreds of people trapped by floodwater in the Houston area.

As Hurricane Harvey bears down on the Texas coast, gasoline prices in Florida are expected to jump in the next week. Oil refineries sit in the projected path of the storm, and much of the gas that Florida receives is shipped across the Gulf of Mexico from those refineries.

The College World Series finals begin Monday night featuring two teams from the same conference, but two distinctly different histories in Omaha. The SEC regular season co-champion LSU Tigers, gunning for their 7th national crown, face the co-champion Florida Gators, who are looking for their first national title. For the first 40 years of the college baseball championship round, the Tigers were a non-factor. The first champion was crowned in 1947, but LSU did not reach the CWS until 1986.…

They are young and old: a high school student who can’t yet vote, a Vietnam vet who did so proudly. They hail from all corners of the United States and very different walks of life: a “downhome boy” from Kentucky, a third-generation Mexican-American from Texas, a stay-at-home mom in Pennsylvania, an Iranian immigrant in Los Angeles. Some oppose Donald Trump and all that he stands for, while others voted enthusiastically for him. Now, they are critiquing him. One hundred days…